Health in Our Hands: Building and sustaining student engagement in genomic and environmental health sciences through a community-school partnership

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This proposed project intends to address challenges identified by and realize the full potential of two earlier SEPA-funded projects: a project completed in 2012, Education for Community Genomic Awareness (Grant Code: R25RR022703); and our currently project (2014- 2019), A New Genomic Framework for Schools and Communities (Grant Code: 8 R25 GM129186-05). These projects focused on addressing the critical need for modern genomics curriculum for middle and high school students by connecting classroom instruction with the community to give both students and community members opportunities to understand, explain and apply ideas about health-related phenomena to their lives tied to gene-environment interactions, natural selection, and evolution. The implementation of these projects has produced evidence of success in student learning and interest, it has also produced three challenges to the realization of their full potential: 1) Aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, these units are vastly different than those teachers are familiar with and making community connections are also difficult to orchestrate; 2) The potential for maintaining and enhancing student engagement was limited by short periods during the school year and lack of continuity from year to year; 3) The extent of support provided by the project to schools suggests the need to develop a model for sustained support from internal sources once the grant period is over. This research educational program plan outlines a novel design for science education that combines three components: 1) high quality curriculum materials, 2) innovative professional learning, and 3) a community health/science education consortium. These components work together to support and sustain genomic and environmental health learning and inspire interest in careers for underrepresented middle and high school students both in and out of school. The result will be a new, innovative, sustainable educational program with the following characteristics: 1) “Health in Our Hands”, a coherent set of curricula for secondary grades that maximizes deepening of student understanding; 2) A “Community of Practice” linking teachers with informal educators, learning new teaching practices, making seamless connections between the classroom and community, and enabling students to apply what they have learned to real-world health issues; 3) “Greater Flint Health in Our Hands” consortium of health-related organizations, providing the mentors and the community-based activities, and support for future growth of the learning program after the expiration of this grant.